The Gardners: Dating Life....Oh the good times!

Ryan and I meet in June 2008 for the first time. He was dressed as Elvis. Nine months later, we meet up again at his soccer game in March 2009. He messaged me on Facebook to get my number. We started dating...here are some glimpses into our story.

These were to hard to put in order...There's a lot of pictures...

The first night, the famous Elvis costume. He has me laughing all night long. He was a mascot for one of the roller derby teams we went to watch. After the roller derby we went to Applebees to eat with Nick and Aimee. No it isn't grabbing Connie's boob, it's just how the angle of the picture turned out. Ha!

First picture of Ryan I ever had, look at that beard. We went out a week after this picture was taken, and it was shaven. I haven't seen it that long since.

Our first date to the Diamond Backs game. It was a lot of fun.

On Thursday nights I would go with Nick Kurzawski to watch him and Ryan play soccer in Glendale. Then Ryan would drive me all the way home. We held hands for the first time one of the Thurdays he drove me home. He also told me during one of the drives that he was so excited to take me home that night, he couldn't stop thinking about it all day. He knew how to make me smile.

The FRIST KISS: Ryan asked me what I was doing on a Saturday and I told him that I had a lot of errands to run. He offered to come to Mesa and run around town with me. I have to admit, I was a little nervous but really excited for him to come over. It was like only the second or third time we have gone out besides all the car rides. He got there around 2 and we did everything that I needed to. We ran to the mall and into the store Tillys. While we were looking at hats, he stopped, stared and got really really close to my face. I was freaking out thinking he was going to kiss me in that store for the first time. He, being Ryan, turned around and starting looking at hats again. He got my stomach filled with butterflies for no reason. What a tease. So that night we went to Cheesecake Factory, I can still tell you what we got to eat and what song was playing at the restaurant. Avocado Eggrolls, chicken parmesan, (we shared) and "Come on get Higher" by Matt Nathanson. Later that night we were watching a movie at my house and we were just hanging out. I was still nervous from earlier and the fake out, so I leaned over and kissed Ryan. He is still mad to this day that I took the first kiss away from him. I say, well you had your chance and walked away. Ha! He said he would have kissed me the next time we hung out. What can I say, I'm a cougar in this relationship, and I have to claim my prey. Ha!

Golfland baby. Every date life had at least one trip to Golfland in it. That was the night my golf ball zoomed passed Ryan's face and into the lazy river. I'm glad he has fast reflexes and didn't get a black eye.

I remember the second week we started to date, I promised a friend that I would go with her to a BBQ in Chandler. But Ryan wanted me to go to see Wolverine with his friends later that night. He was so sweet and picked me up from that house, took me to north Phoenix to see the movie, then all the way back home to Mesa. I knew he was a keeper at that point.

If you haven't noticed, we take a lot of pictures in the car. A lot of our dating life was in the car driving since Ryan lived in Glendale and I lived in Mesa. It was a good 45 mintes away in good traffic. We had to capture those fun moments.